Massena spending up to $82,000 to study idea of multi-purpose events center

Friday, July 11, 2014 - 2:46 pm

MASSENA -- Following a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, the Town Council approved spending up to $82,000 of casino compact money to hire a Manhattan-based company to study building a multi-purpose events center, according to Town Supervisor Joseph Gray.

In a unanimous vote after an executive session, the board agreed to a memorandum of understanding with Manhattan Investment Partners and its affiliate, Venue Strategies, LLC, “to jointly pursue an effort on a phased basis regarding the analysis, planning, programming and development of the proposed multi-purpose events center to serve Massena and the surrounding region,” the agreement states.

“We’ve been negotiating with Venue Strategies for about six months on this project. I wasn’t sure if we were ready to finalize it but after discussing it further with Town Attorney Eric Gustafson at our meeting Wednesday we decided to move ahead with the MOU,” Gray said.

Phase one of the project involves a market demand study focusing on the Massena region and an area within a roughly 65-mile radius. The study will seek to identify the market need and demand for the proposed event center.

The MOU calls for a draft of the study to be completed and submitted to the town within 120 days of the signing. The town will submit comments on the draft and a final market demand study will be submitted to the town no more than 45 days after submission of the draft, Gray said.

“Quite honestly, we don’t know if any of these ideas make sense from a market demand standpoint,” Gray said.